People got the power; Cath McGowan speaks

By Alyssa Allen

Cathy McGowan has become the first female Independent for the northern Victorian seat of Indi. The declaration came after former Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella conceded defeat this morning after holding the seat for twelve years.

Ms McGowan's win follows a tumultuous day for Wangaratta with Victoria Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell dismissing the Wangaratta Rural City Council.

Ms McGowan told ABC Radio Statewide Drive Victoria that she holds her victory with enormous pride.

"A very tightly fought victory, right down to the wire, we've run a grassroots campaign and people have really responded and you walk up the street and people tooting their horns and congratulations and well done and it's amazing to think about what 33 000 votes looks like but you hear it, it's wonderful."

Ms McGowan says Sophie Mirabella congratulated her on the victory in a short and professional conversation.

Ms McGowan says the enormous community involvement helped her across the line.

"It really was a community response, they thought they were being taken for granted and they've reacted in an amazing way, but I'll probably never understand really the amount of work that everybody has done...you keep hearing the hundreds of stories of people right across the community who got out, got engaged, did community work, letter dropped, knocked on doors."

Ms McGowan says listening to needs of voters has paid dividends.

"Winning as an independent when we didn't allocate preferences, we trusted the community to make their own decisions, we appealed for the community to become involved and they did, we ran on issues that people told us were important so they weren't the national issues, so in one way it was a high risk strategy but in fact it never was high risk because we were doing what the community said that they wanted."

Ms McGowan says the people of Indi appreciated her refreshing outlook on politics.

"I will never be one voice, I will be 98 000 voices, all the voices of Indi and the intellectual capacity and all the skills and knowledge of this community will be with me all the way, that's an enormous thing to take to parliament."

Ms McGowan plans to bring more resources and infrastructure to Indi but on a personal level she hopes to connect with the Indigenous people.

"I want to acknowledge the Indigenous people, the Aboriginals of Indi, you might recall that Mr Rudd made the apology on behalf of the people of Australia and at that time our federal member wasn't in attendance, and it's one of things I have been talking to the Aboriginal people of Indi about, I've had initial discussions with them, making an apology to the stolen generation and we're talking about how we might do that in a respectful way and how I might engage with the Aboriginal community of Indi and include them in policy."

Ms McGowan says the sacking of the Wangaratta Rural Council was an issue for State Government and refused to comment.

"I can't go there if you don't mind, if you would understand on those sort of topics, I'm not going to have opinions about, they'll be outside my brief and I'll be working with the federal members for Indi and setting up relationships with the relevant people but I won't be taking a stance on those topics."